Conformity and Individuality in a Small Town

Chad Albrecht

English 1302

July 28, 2005

Conformity and Individuality in a Small Town

John Updike was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania on March 18, 1932. His father was a high school math teacher who supported the entire family, including his grandparents on his mothers side. As a child, Updike wanted to become a cartoonist because of The New Yorker magazine. He wrote articles and poems and kept a journal. John was an exceptional student and received a full scholarship to Harvard University. At Harvard he majored in English and became the editor of the Harvard newspaper. Upon graduation in 1954, he wrote his first story, Friends from Philadelphia, and sent it to The New Yorker. This started his career and he became one of the great award winning authors of our time.

In a transcript of a radio interview with Updike, he says his duties in the early works were to "describe reality as it had come to me, to give the mundane its beautiful due." (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec03/updike_12-29.html retrieved 7/27/05) Updike felt as though ordinary middle-class life was enough to write about and that there was enough drama, interest, relevance, importance, poetry in it.

The 'A&P' written by John is about middle and, presumed, upper middle class life and the characters are ones that people can easily identify with. There is the teenage boy, Sammy, working a meaningless job ogling scantily clad teenage girls, a married man with children, Stokesie, doing the same, an uptight store manager, Lengel, who, in this case, is a man but could have easily been a woman in today's society, the insecure teenage girls, who Sammy nicknamed 'Plaid' and 'Big Tall Goonie-Goonie, following around their "leader," the leader herself, Queenie, who is confident in her socioeconomic status as well as her appearance, the housewives who cover themselves in public, the cash-register-watcher, the 'sheep' or the other people in the A&P doing their grocery shopping, and the butcher, McMahon. All of these characters allow any reader to identify with them in some way, whether past or present.

The story takes place on a summer afternoon in an eastern coastal town at a local grocery store, the A & P. The protagonist is Sammy; is a teenaged boy who works at the A&P. Sammy is also the narrator of the story, the reader sees through his eyes and knows his thoughts. This story, which chronicles an afternoon at the A&P, could be called a 'coming of age' story, due to Sammy's stand against authority and his decision to make his own choice regardless of the consequences. Sammy observes the three barefoot bikini clad girls enter the store and walk around. The story proceeds to explain the reactions of the customers and employees in the grocery store to the nearly naked teenage girls. Sammy's contempt for the customers is apparent as he calls them 'sheep' and 'house slaves' and, one in particular, a 'witch.' Sammy describes the appearance of each of the girls in great detail, much more than any of the other customers or employees. Lengel comes out of his managers' office and tells the girls they are inappropriately dressed and embarrasses them in front of the other customers. Queenie tells Lengel that they are dressed decent and he tells them he doesn't want to argue with them and says it's store 'policy' for the customers to have their shoulders covered when they come into the A&P. Sammy feels sorry for the embarrassment Lengel causes the girls and, hoping to be the girls 'hero,' he quits. Sammy feels as if he is defending their honor by quitting, but they don't even notice. He leaves the store and looks for them on the street, but they are no where to be found.

Repeated themes of sexuality, individuality, and conforming are apparent throughout the story. The sexuality is apparent when Sammy describes the chunky girls as having'...a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs.' He describes the second girl as "with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long -- you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive..." Sammy goes into greater detail about the third girl who he calls "Queenie" saying she had "long white prima donna legs," "this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light," and describes her breasts as "the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known." Even though you don't know what the other characters are thinking, Sammy's description of their reactions leads the reader to believe their thoughts are similar to his of sexual innuendo.

Individuality, and conformity are two other themes present in the story. The two are intertwined. In the beginning, Queenie and her friends represent the theme of individuality and Sammy and the A&P represent conformity. The apparel choice of Queenie and company is a challenge to what is acceptable in society in this time period. In today's society, even in a small town, the girls could have gone into a store only wearing bikinis and they would hardly have been noticed. A small, conservative beachfront community in the early 1960's is what the girls are struggling against when they go into the store half-dressed. Whether conscious